


Dinner for Two

by LookBetweenTheLines



Series: Complaints of a Hero [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Date Night, Gen, Heavensward 3.4, Minor Spoilers, banquet scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 08:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20079493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookBetweenTheLines/pseuds/LookBetweenTheLines
Summary: Crises don't wait for the Warrior of Light. Aymeric can only hope that he can be spared the time for a quiet meal and some company.





	Dinner for Two

**Author's Note:**

> Because this scene was one of the most wholesome in the entire game so far, I wanted to expand on it and the relationship between Aymeric and my WoL.

Daylight at the point of sunset turned pale, a yellow or occasionally pink haze descending on Ishgard for a bell or so before dusk that held meagre hints of the midday brightness in the winter sky. 

Aymeric de Borel watched the haze turn the stonework pale yellow from his drawing room window. He wasn’t watching for his guest's arrival, of course. He was watching the Temple Knights change shifts, those on the day shift heading for Foundation and the Forgotten Knight in groups of three or four while the night shift yawned behind their helmets and checked their swords and shields before taking position. At least, that’s what he told himself. This shift-changing ritual had occurred without fail every evening for many, many years. Aymeric had partaken in it himself in his youth. There was nothing interesting about it. 

The knight he’d sent to Fortemps Manor had returned to confirm that the Warrior of Light was still in Ishgard and had received the message. Aymeric's manservant had been standing at the door for half a bell already with no indication of his guest's arrival. Aymeric was starting to wonder if he would arrive at all. 

Regardless of the man's own desires, crises did not wait for the Warrior of Light. 

A year ago Aymeric would never have entertained inviting the living legend to dinner. When first they met Z’kila had been mostly silent, speaking only when addressed with a masked expression that only ever broke to smirk, an expression that made him look as though he knew one’s deepest secrets with but a glance. However, their shared time in Ishgard, through trials and triumphs and losses, had allowed their relationship to develop past the point of mere business and Aymeric dared call him a dear friend these days.   
Borel Manor was still guestless. 

Perhaps he had been called away on some emergency, as was often the case when it looked like the world was winding down for at least a moment of peace. Sighing, Aymeric stood from his armchair and turned to call in Jeimmoux from the cold. It wouldn’t be long before the night turned frigid and he couldn’t ask the elderly elezen to wait any longer. 

A shadow moved in the corner of the drawing room. 

Aymeric's hand flew to his hip but of course he wasn’t wearing his blade. 

‘This house is ridiculously easy to sneak into, you know,’ Z'kila chuckled. 

Heart still thumping a malm a minute, Aymeric exhaled his relief. The scar on his abdomen, now healed, prickled uncomfortably, a memory of pain. Z'kila lounged back in another armchair, one leg crossed over the other. 

‘Most men would be tied up in Foundation as a spectacle for attempting it,’ Aymeric pointed out, his voice too light to hold any real threat. 

‘You were supposed to have this place and your office secured after—last time,’ Z'kila said with a click of his tongue. 

With a flick of his tail, he hopped to his feet and stepped into the light of the single candle. He had traded his usual coat for a rather nice midnight blue frock coat and black breeches. His knives weren’t immediately on show but Aymeric had no doubt they were on his person somewhere. ‘So,’ said the miqo'te, ignoring the half-hearted threat, ‘where is everyone?’ 

Aymeric frowned. ‘Everyone?’ 

Z'kila blinked back at him, a hand on his hip. ‘Oh. Is it...just us?’ 

‘...Did you not know?’ Against his better judgement Aymeric started to worry over his invitation. What right did he have to monopolise the Warrior of Light's precious free time? ‘Was my invitation not clear? I can only apologise, my friend-’

Z'kila waved a hand at him. ‘There’s no need for that. I misunderstood, that’s all. Where I come from banquets usually mean the whole tribe comes together to eat.’ His smile was reassuring. ‘I thought I would sneak in without anyone noticing. My own fault.’

‘Not at all.’ Still, Aymeric worried. ‘Shall we?’

‘Please. I’m starving.’ 

That was good to hear. Aymeric showed him through to the dining room and revelled privately at the way Z'kila's eyes widened and his ears pricked at the spread on the long dining table. 

‘Please, take a seat. I will be back shortly.’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Z'kila, taking his seat at the spot Aymeric indicated, devouring the various dishes with his eyes. Aymeric thought it a little odd. Surely someone as revered, and presumably wealthy, as Z'kila should have no problem feeding himself. Then again, he admonished himself, adventurers spent most of their time in the wilds where gil meant nothing and dinner was entirely dependent on what could be caught. 

‘Jeimmoux,’ Aymeric called through the front door. ‘Our guest has arrived.’

The door opened a crack and his manservant peered in. ‘Arrived, ser?’

‘It’s probably for the best that you don’t ask, my good man. Would you mind serving dinner shortly? I fear Z'kila may serve himself before long.’

‘Very good, ser,’ said Jeimmoux, shaking a fine dusting of snow from his shoulders before following Aymeric back into the Manor. There they found Z'kila leaning slowly closer and closer to one of the plates, tail twitching eagerly over his lap. He jerked upright when he realised he was being watched, a dusting of pink on his cheeks as he tried to look more interested in the silverware. Aymeric, now seriously concerned about the last time Z'kila had a proper meal, hurried to take his seat across the table. 

Jeimmoux, Fury bless his heart, immediately began preparations for plating. 

‘I hope I haven’t dragged you away from anything more deserving of your time?’ Aymeric said, sipping at his wine. 

‘I have listened to Alphinaud theorise about potential next steps for the newly expanded Eorzean alliance to last me a lifetime,’ Z'kila assured him, though he was watching the manservant most intently. ‘Your invitation was a welcome one.’

Politics never was Z'kila's interest. Aymeric had thought him little more than the Scions' weapon at first since he contributed so little to plans and contracts. But there was a lot more going on behind those metallic eyes than people realised. Plans? He would listen. He would nod. And he would do his own thing anyway if he thought it better. 

Jeimmoux set a full plate in front of their guest, a neat and impressive arrangement of meats and vegetables. Z'kila's eyebrows disappeared up underneath the fringe of his hair and Aymeric thought he might start visibly salivating. But to his surprise, he tore his eyes away from the food and waited for Aymeric to be served an equally full plate.

‘Please, eat as much as you wish, my friend,’ said Aymeric. 

Z'kila's head jerked in a hurried nod. ‘My thanks.’

For the first half a bell or so they ate in near silence with Jeimmoux standing to attention at the wine table nearby, watching for any indication either his lord or his guest were wanting. Z'kila, though thankfully used his silverware the way one should, could barely be called a civilised eater. The man was hungry. Starving, Aymeric corrected, realising Z'kila hadn’t been exaggerating. The miqo'te was far more interested in his meal than the company, which Aymeric found amusing in and of itself. 

‘What was the occasion?’ Z'kila asked, finally looking up from his plate once he’d apparently dealt with the immediate gnawing hunger. Jeimmoux was at his side in an instant to refill his half-empty meal. If anyone ever questioned Z'kila's integrity Aymeric would invite them to look upon the expression of utter bafflement when someone tried to serve him.

‘A celebration of sorts,’ said Aymeric. ‘We never did have that drink and I thought we may as well dine also.’ He hesitated, wondering how much of the truth would be too much. ‘...I also missed your company. Following the battle on the Steps of Faith there has been little cause for me to call on you.’

Z'kila averted his gaze, a bashful frown playing between his brows. ‘Well, you know. There doesn’t need to be a city-wide threat looming for you to ask.’ 

‘On the contrary, I feel too many of us are competing for your time.’

Z'kila shrugged gracelessly and tucked back into his food. ‘When there isn’t work I just make more for myself. Seriously,’ he added, catching Aymeric’s doubt on the edge of his periphery, ‘ask anyone.’ 

Admittedly, Aymeric had overheard some Temple Knight gossip about the Warrior of Light hauling construction stone about with his own two hands down in the Brume but he’d dismissed it as mere rumour to make him sound more martyr-like than he already was. ‘Are Master Alphinaud's theories really that dull?’

That dragged a chuckle out of him. ‘_Yes_. I would prefer grunt work any day of the moon. Give me a primal to take down or a village to rebuild and I’ll be happy.’ 

Aymeric enjoyed conversation with Z'kila. It hadn’t always been so, he had to admit. Before their foray into the Churning Mists together with Alphinaud, he and the Warrior of Light had said nary a word to one another that didn’t portend directly to the task at hand. But, well, intimate conversation was inevitable out in the wilds. Z'kila sat keeping watch over their little encampment with a whetstone to his knives, and Aymeric, too anxious about the future state of Ishgard to rest, sat with him late into the night while the younger elezen slept. That had been their first real conversation. Aymeric had relived memories of his time as a mere knight for Z'kila and, with some gentle probing, had learnt a little more about the way he was discovered and recruited by the Scions.

It had been a little halting and awkward. It was nothing of the sort now. 

‘My sisters brought back an antelope that rivalled a gigas once,’ Z'kila said once the wine had loosened his lips a little. ‘Now _that_ was a banquet. We were eating it for days. Really, I had never eaten so much in my life. I just wish I could have been with them when they brought it down. It sounded epic, the way they told it.’ 

‘Why weren’t you?’ Aymeric asked over the brim of his goblet. 

It was an innocent enough question but the peaceful neutrality of Z'kila's expression tightened somewhat. Not quite a frown or a scowl, just hints of both that told Aymeric they were approaching personal boundaries. 

‘Tias don’t really hunt,’ Z'kila admitted after a tense hesitation. ‘We’re supposed to expand the tribe's territory and hold it from competing tribes. I preferred hunting,’ he added as though it were an afterthought and started to make shapes out of his mashed popotoes with his fork. 

‘...You must have expanded the Z tribe's land by great lengths, then.’ 

Z'kila snorted.

‘Am I wrong? Someone of your strength, Z'kila-’

‘I’m not strong, Aymeric.’ Z'kila's metallic, shield-like eyes flashed up to pin Aymeric’s gaze. ‘I’m fast. There’s quite a difference. I was far better suited to hunting alongside my sisters but the only other tia in the tribe was in his twilight years.’ 

Aymeric nodded slowly, trying to understand though he confessed to know little of Seeker culture. 

Z’kila smiled quite suddenly, as though aware the mood was dropping and wished to salvage it. ‘I often poached on the land of the neighbouring Keepers just to annoy them. That was always a fun game and Z’rhale Nunh couldn’t stop me because technically I was doing what I was supposed to. See?’ 

Aymeric hoped his returning smile was reassuring. ‘Were you ever caught?’ 

‘Oh all the time!’ Z’kila snorted. ‘I wasn’t born a shadow. They spotted me all the time. But I was still fast and by the time I was seen the damage was already done.’ 

They laughed together, Z’kila at a fond memory and Aymeric at the mental image of the man before him as an adolescent skipping away from an enraged huntress with a snared ground squirrel in his grasp. He knew his next question had every chance of sending Z’kila to hide back behind his mask. But he wanted him to know that he cared for who he was, not just the Warrior of Light. ‘…Z’kila-’ 

‘Kila,’ he interrupted. 

‘Pardon?’ 

‘Just Kila.’ When Aymeric merely blinked Z’kila huffed heavily. ‘Unless you’d like me to say ‘Aymeric de Borel’ every time I address you?’ 

The idea disgusted him and, judging by the other man’s smirk, it showed on his face. ‘Alright… Kila.’ 

‘Better.’ A contented nod. ‘Sorry for interrupting.’

Somehow the correction emboldened Aymeric to ask his question, as though Z’kila had subconsciously given him permission to ask with the shortened version of his name. ‘I was just curious to know whether you visited your tribe whenever you found yourself with a free moment.’ 

Z’kila's brow twitched at the question but he didn’t disappear into himself. He had finished all the food on his plate and declined more with a shake of his head when Jeimmoux approached. ‘I write my mother sometimes,’ he answered at length, ‘but the circumstances of my leaving weren’t…exactly…civil.’ 

‘Oh?’ Aymeric asked, pretending to look more interested in his roasted karakul so that Z'kila could change the subject if he wanted. 

‘Mm,’ Z'kila hummed. Then, like a floodgate being opened after years of being shut tight, he sighed and with his breath came a stream of words. ‘I was exiled. For, uh, lying with somebody I shouldn’t have.’ 

Aymeric’s fork clattered loudly against his plate and he fumbled to pick it back up, internally cursing his own clumsy fingers. Really, it hadn’t been that much of a shock. Not enough to warrant such a ridiculous reaction at any rate. Much more of a surprise, however, was the sound of Z’kila’s unsuppressed laughter.

‘I’m sorry,’ he chuckled, hiding behind his wine. ‘I forget how prudish you Ishagardians can be.’ 

Aymeric scowled but felt little indignance at the jibe. It was true, after all. Certainly compared to the notorious promiscuity of Seekers. ‘Is that how you found yourself an adventurer?’

‘Kind of,’ Z’kila mused. ‘_She_ was exiled too but was promptly adopted by the Keeper huntresses. You can imagine that they wanted nothing to do with me, and neither did their men. When I happened upon Gridania and went looking for a hot meal the first person I spoke to mistook me for an adventurer so I just…went with it. If it got me food I didn’t care.’ He stopped to take a sip. His words were beginning to slur just slightly around the edges, barely noticeable and Aymeric too was feeling the pleasant buzz of the alcohol. ‘Next thing I know people are pestering me left right and centre to deal with a ladybug infestation, to pass a parcel along to Bentbranch, to cheer up this sad orphan girl by dancing for her and _man_ could that woman at the Canopy talk.’ He covered his eyes with one hand as though the mere memory of this woman brought back all the boredom tenfold. 

‘A begrudging adventurer then?’ Aymeric chortled. 

Z’kila shook his head. ‘I was barely an adventurer at that point. More just an errand boy that could wield a bow and a knife. It wasn’t ‘til I caught a ferry from Ul’dah to Limsa that I seriously considered pursuing that kind of career. Imagine returning to the Z tribe stronger than Z’rhale and stealing his title from him. That was what drove me to do it at all.’ 

Aymeric regarded him with his head tilted to one side. ‘Does it still drive you?’ 

He wouldn’t have dared ask the question sober but none of his usual careful pre-speech thought was present at that moment. Maybe Z’kila wouldn’t have considered answering it if he were sober. 

The miqo’te shrugged. ‘I’m not really interested in becoming Nunh anymore. As a tia it’s all we’re taught, you know? The only thing we can aspire to be is Nunh. But then I saw the rest of the world, learnt how it worked and realised I could have my pick of vocation, of bedmates, of anything. I needed my tribe when it was all I knew. But I know better now.’ 

Aymeric stared at his face as he talked, spellbound by the seriousness and muted passion in the way he spoke. He could almost feel himself Z’kila’s feelings of betrayal, the loss of not knowing his place in the world after his exile. His anger at the tribe’s leader, this Z’rhale. It was almost heart-wrenching to hear of his hardships. 

Then Z’kila grinned and broke the spell. ‘Besides, I might still go back one day to kick his backside into submission without taking his title. Just to make the point.’ 

Aymeric smiled, amused by the thought. ‘May I come and watch?’

‘You can have a formal written invitation if you like,’ Z’kila joked. ‘Along with Thancred and Yda. And Estinien maybe, if the postmoogles can find him.’

‘Indeed,’ Aymeric agreed with a grimace. ‘Surely he can’t escape them forever.’

‘Oh, you think those moogles of the Churning Mists were cute, right?’ Z’kila said, suddenly banging his goblet down and supporting his elbows on the table to lean closer to Aymeric like he had a tale in store for him. It was dreadful table manners and Jeimmoux noticeably winced from the wine table. Aymeric didn’t care. He was in half a mind to mirror his friend’s posture but thought that might send the poor man swooning. ‘Moogles are _lazy,_ Aymeric. Remember the horn I used to summon Hraesvelgr? Well they didn’t just _give it_ to us.’

Aymeric settled back into his seat, feeling content to let the man talk. When first they met he hadn’t much to say at all even when directly addressed. Afterwards, during the occasions Aymeric had the chance to watch his interactions with others from afar, he seemed to be mostly talked at. Perhaps the reason for his silence was simply because few people let him speak. It was sad, in a way; but there was something about the fact that Z’kila talked easily with him when he did with no one else which was embarrassingly satisfying. 

And he’d been given permission to call him _Kila._ Not even Alphinaud addressed him that way. 

Why did that make him feel happy?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if Aymeric's manservant is ever named so I gave him one of my own. If I'm wrong let me know and I'll change it!  
Also, I totally misunderstood that dinner invitation as well. It sounded to me like a banquet where many people would be present, hence why I wrote it this way. I'm glad it wasn't, though.   
(For clarification, I don't see these two as being romantically involved, though I do imagine them having some kind of mutual bro-crush on each other.)


End file.
